What Are The Similarities Between The Scottsboro Boys And To Kill A Mockingbird

A moral that is common to both To Kill a Mockingbird and an article titled “ Outrage Over 6 Month Sentence for Brock Turner Rape Case”, is that favoring a certain race or social class causes society to degress rather than progress. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the Ewells had accused a man named Tom Robinson of rape and they already acted like they’ve won the case because “ ‘ when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s, the white man always wins. ’”(295), they knew that whatever they accused Tom of they could’ve gotten away with it as a result of the color of their skin. More importantly, there wasn’t really a case to begin with as “ Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.” (323), the result was already decided before the case got to court.

Similar to the Scottsboro boys trials, lives, relationships, and opinions are tremendously transformed for the duration of To Kill a Mockingbird. Abounding transitions are brought among a brave, wise, and experienced man named Atticus. Throughout To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus’s relationship between himself and society is extremely challenged, bringing infinite stress and adjustments to his engrossed life. Atticus’s relationships, with numerous people, transform regularly throughout the book.

Mayella vs. Victoria: To Kill A Mockingbird vs. Scottsboro Trial “He couldn’t get us to the chair fast enough.” Haywood Patterson a young black boy accused of raping two young girls named Victoria Price and Ruby Bates said this during his trial. Patterson said this about the judge of the case he was involved in. This was in the Scottsboro trial where a group of black boys was accused of raping the two young girls Victoria and Ruby. This same topic is brought up in the book To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee when a young lady named Mayella Ewell accuses a black man named Tom Robinson of raping her.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a story about an african american man who has there life on the line because his being falsely accused of raping a white woman. To Kill a Mockingbird was based off the true story of the Scottsboro boys who were a group of african american teenagers who all had their lives on the line for being falsely accused of raping two white women. Both of these cases are similar because they both have to do with african american men who are being falsely accused of rape, deal with racial injustice or hatred, and are both represented by kind white lawyers. Both the Scottsboro case and the Tom Robinson case, where about black men that had their lives on the line for being falsely accused of rape. On April 9th,1931 an Alabama judge sentenced

On March 25, 1931, a group of nine black teenagers, ranging from ages 12 to 20, were on a train from Chattanooga to Memphis.2 At the height of the depression, it was typical for young men to hop aboard local railways, moving from one fruitless job to another. During this particular train ride, one white teen had stepped on one of the black teens, Haywood Patterson’s, hands and began a stone throwing fight, which quickly escalated to one between the nine blacks and a group of young white men.2 The group of nine successfully managed to throw all but one of their attackers from the train before it had reached a life endangering speed, at which point those men had alerted the local station master.2 The station called to have the train stopped and the boys arrived to a lynch mob in the town of Scottsboro, Alabama.2 Local authorities and state police held the crowd back and escorted the boys to the local jailhouse to await questioning and certain imprisonment.2 Also arriving to Scottsboro were two women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, one of which gave testament to which she claimed the two had been raped by a group of twelve black men with pistols and knives.2 While in the jail, Price identified six of the nine boys as the ones who had attacked her.2 The guard on duty had reportedly replied, “If those six had Miss

In the 1930s, there were many conflicts because African Americans were always the ones to get blamed by the prejudicial people who lived in Alabama. When the Scottsboro case was happening, Harper Lee was six years old. So thirty years later, she had written a book based on the Scottsboro case. Nine black men had been accused of rape by a white woman, and in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was one black man who had been accused of rape by a white woman. Harper Lee was inspired by the Scottsboro Boys’ case when writing her novel due to the similarities between them.

A similarity between the two is racial injustice. Atticus explains the court that they cannot simply judge someone based off the color of their skin in which case is happening (Lee 208- online). The Scottsboro trial is known as one of the most shameful examples of injustice in the nation’s history (Linder 9). Back in these times, racism was common and there was still great tension between those of white skin and those of colored. Things we hear and know today are very different from that of Racism and The Great Depression.

Black men are six times as likely as white men to be incarcerated in federal prisons and local jails. This kind of injustice is the reason why cases like The Scottsboro Boys case, where nine boys were falsely accused of rape, exist. This is also why books like To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee are made. In both of these trials, they highlight the injustice of blacks during the 1930’s.

Before we can explain the trials, we need to understand what racism is. Routledge states, “...people sometimes use prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory behavior to boost their own self-esteem.” An example of this at Scottsboro is during the trial, where all the black boys were tried together at the same time. Normally, only one person would

Benjamin Hudok Honors English 10B Vande-Guchte 5/15/23 To Kill a Mockingbird, Symbols of Foreshadowing essay To Kill A Mockingbird is a story angled towards fueling the civil rights movement of the 1960s. The Author, Harper Lee, loosely based her story off of the trial of the Scottsboro boys in the early 1930’s. The real life trial had depicted 2 white girls who accused 9 black boys of assaulting them, despite there being no evidence the 9 boys were sentenced to life in prison even after the girls had admitted the allegations were fake. She was inspired by her father’s writings in newspapers and time as a lawyer in Alabama because of the ideas he expressed in regards to the blatant racism in the Scottsboro Boys trial.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, Mayella Ewell claimed she was raped after requesting Tom Robinson's help. Her dad ran in after the alleged rape; they told the sheriff, and Tom Robinson was put in jail. In the Scottsboro trials and in To Kill A Mocking, the African American men were taken from jail to

Hannah Strathmeyer Mr. Morton English II 8 April 2016 Essay While reading To Kill a Mockingbird and the "Report on the Scottsboro, ALA. Case,” The Scottsboro Trial and the trial of Tom Robinson are extremely bias toward Negros; Bob Ewell, Ruby Bates, and Victoria Price show a great amount of being biast in both accounts of reading. Bias is shown throughout both cases, which took place in the same time period which is around the 1930's which effects the authors purpose in both stories. One of the main elements is setting in the trial and book. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper writes her book based on the Scottsboro trial to show her side of how she feels.

The judges were afraid the whites would riot against the court. Both the jury and the judges were peer pressured by the people. To Kill a Mockingbird and the beating, trial, and riots of Rodney King show that racism has always existed, and it’s the people that control the court. Evidence can be provided to prove the innocent and guilty, however the people can decide and fight for who “deserves justice.” We the people in which we can stand up and bring

Therefore, if one was colored the trial wouldn’t be in their favor. The trials either would end in the conviction of death or the least likely, time in prison. In the Scottsboro Case and the book To Kill a Mockingbird the victims lived hard lives and were influenced by others. Aside from that the physical evidence was weak as well as the testimonies. The Scottsboro Case was the only crime in American History to produce many trials, convictions, and retrials as the alleged rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on March 25, 1931 (Linder).

More information was found that proved the boys were on a different train car than the accusers. The court finally ruled four out of the nine defendants were to be put in jail, and it took 18 years for the last to obtain freedom (Anderson). Scottsboro happened in the early 1930s, when racism was very common everywhere in America. Correspondingly, To Kill a Mockingbird was also set during that time period. Many connections can be made between the Scottsboro trials and Tom Robinson’s trial.